


[regret in your tears]

by scorpionGrass



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Barian World, Gen, Past Relationship(s), Underground Dueling, written in aesthetic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-23 15:57:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14335953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: a string of kidnappings without a trace, whose victims fall into a fate worse than death.a reporter who's waiting for her breakthrough. a duelist who wants his brother back. a street kid who knows more than he lets on.they're all asking for a lot, but they're each other's best chance.





	1. .prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> august 8th, xxxx, an undesigned audience with destiny

the black pulse that beats in the heartland underground is something buried deep in the trenches of utopia. a place that ties the souls of its victims to a fate worse than death.

barian.

akari presses her lips together as she scrolls through a google search on her d-pad that has exactly four hits, none of them promising, all of them foreboding. “you’re a part of this?”

the redhead sitting across from her continues picking the dirt from his nails. “i didn’t want to be.”

the daily clamor continues around them, but it feels like time has stopped if only for a moment at their table. akari picks up her mug of coffee and takes a scalding sip. they’re at the grounds, the newest coffee sensation that has the attention of every instagram-obsessed teenager and coffee connoisseur in heartland. they’re virtually unseen in the chaos, hidden in plain sight.

“and you’re telling me about it, why?”

there’s a long pause, but his eyes finally slide up to meet akari’s, hooded and dark. “foreshadowing.”

akari grits her teeth together. “and?”

the redhead doesn’t look like he belongs, a sore thumb of ripped jeans, tattered sneakers, and a leather jacket that’s two sizes too big for his wiry frame. fake glasses are perched on his nose, a bad attempt to cover a dark bruise that’s bloomed over his cheekbone. his lips cut in a slash across his face. a pendant hangs from his neck, a red polished gem on a rope. there aren’t any signs of gang colours or visible tattoos that tag him as part of anything she knows.

“you’ll find out,” he says after another agonizing pause. he finishes off his coffee and takes a pen out of his jacket. “and when you do, find me, akari tsukumo.”

his calling card is a napkin with a number scrawled on it that isn’t even from heartland, the area code unknown to her, with a signature in the form of a cluster of stars. akari furrows her brow, but when she looks up to demand an explanation, he’s gone.


	2. don't rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> august 9th, xxxx, a vengeful human pit against utopia

orbital 7 is a mess.

orbital 7 thinks kaito is a bigger mess.

kaito watches the robot roll all over the room when he gets back, fussing like the mother he never knew. he doesn’t have the strength to tell it to stop, not when orbital so promptly dumps a first aid kit on his bed and attempts to start tending to his injuries.

“i’ve got it,” kaito says, shooing it away. he sits down on his bed and stares across the room at the web of pictures and maps and pins and strings he’s hung above his desk. a web that leads nowhere fast, of lies and rumours and nothing, absolutely nothing, that can help him.

but it’s all he’s got on the barian, and he’s not letting it go so easily.

“you need to stop pushing yourself so hard, master--”

“i will do what needs to be done,” kaito mutters, effectively cutting off any more unnecessary needling about his health.

it doesn't stop orbital 7 from rolling back and forth on it's treads, whirring and buzzing in concern.

“if you want to be useful, go through everything we've found so far,” kaito says. after all, silence will only let him dwell on mistakes, hate himself for not being able to prevent anything, and wonder how he allowed any of it to happen in the first place.

“understood, master!” orbital 7 says, snapping to attention. “project: barian. an underground society that is rumoured to be a black market hub for duelists. their symbol is the ursa major, more commonly known as the big dipper. they are a main suspect in the recent string of kidnappings that have taken place in heartland city. six months ago they--”

orbital 7’s volume trails into nothing. kaito pauses in dabbing antiseptic over his cuts and scrapes.

“they took haruto,” kaito says, eerily calm. “say it, orbital.”

“t-they took haruto.”

“continue.”

“barian is run by seven lords and one king. rei shingetsu, code name, was one of the barian lords. he orchestrated the kidnapping of haruto tenjo.”

kaito wraps the gauze too tight. he scowls and unwraps it.

“rei shingetsu. red hair, violet eyes, short stature, though actual height unknown. weight unknown. real name unknown. he is a main target in project: barian. not much else is known, considering all of the information we had on him since meeting him last year is nullified due to--”

“were you able to image trace?” kaito interrupts.

“nothing came up as a match on the cctv footage. cameras from the stadium six months ago were corrupted, so those are also a dead end.”

“what about your own footage?”

orbital 7 rolls backward on it's treads, cowering. “still unable to clear the static interference, master.”

kaito's jaw sets in a grim scowl. “then we'll find something else,” he says determinedly. “we're not letting that bastard get away with taking my brother.”

“u-understood, master!”

~

akari’s article on the grounds is cut and dry, a congratulations on the flagship location of a renowned coffee shop that’s finally hit heartland city, complete with a section naming it’s specialty and why it’s worth the long wait in line. it’s boring, but at least the coffee is on the blog’s dime and not her own. the perks of being a reporter.

while attempting to edit it one last time, her mind drifts again to the napkin tucked in her bag. the underground world, barian, that she’s never heard about in her life. which, how?

she’s a goddamn reporter, and going around knowing all the latest gossip, rumours, and stories is her literal job. it’s not like she’s taken an out-of-town vacation since she finished college either. it just doesn’t make sense how something so all-encompassing could be hidden so well.

and she never caught her informant’s name either, drawing a cluster of stars in place of anything actually useful.

“i need a break,” akari says aloud, convincing herself that ten minutes away from her mind-numbing article isn’t going to kill her. it’s not a hard sell: the article’s not even due for another couple hours.

she spins her chair around to grab her bag, rummaging through it to find the napkin, the mysterious number and cluster of stars that look familiar. she hooks her d-gazer over her ear and takes a picture of the napkin. google image search does the rest of the work.

it’s the ursa major, the big dipper.

she frowns. it’s hardly a logo, and there’s no way any kind of underground organization would need one. another glance at the napkin and she makes out the thin circle around one of the stars, like his pen was running low. another search, another answer that makes no sense:

phecda, the name of the star.

akari chews on the inside of her cheek. it means nothing to her, and neither does anything else. she runs another search on the area code, but it leads her to nowhere that makes sense, not if this is supposedly linked directly with heartland city’s core.

dead end after dead end, and four search results that only contain the vaguest of rumours, along with one testimonial from a street kid with dead eyes and bruises.

_“foreshadowing.”_

the word echoes in her head and leaves a foreboding feeling in her gut. it hits her like a brick wall: it’s a clue that leads to nothing… yet.

~

vector taps ash off the end of his cigarette and glances at his d-pad again, the details of his new mark making him scowl.

yuuma tsukumo. orphaned, living with his sister and grandmother in heartland city. age thirteen, attending heartland academy. a duelist who went from clumsy loser to confident string of easy wins practically overnight. an innocent kid with a future as bright as the blinding smile he has in every single one of the reference photos in the file.

well, until barian steps in and steals it away. vector takes another drag off his cigarette.

the turn of the lock on the front door draws vector’s gaze up from his d-pad. he didn’t think he’d get a check-in for another day or so, but a grin spreads across his lips when the door opens.

“i forgot they gave you my extra key, miza.”

“yeah, and it took the entire six months you dropped off the grid to get rid of the stench of smoke, but here you are bringing it back,” mizael complains, locking the door behind him before toeing off his shoes and putting them in the rack. “i’m here on don’s orders.”

“of course, you’d never visit otherwise,” vector says, licking his lips. “i mean, i could make this more fun for the both of us, but that depends on how fast you cut through the bullshit.”

mizael sits down on the couch across from him, crossing his legs like it’s a yoga class and pulling his long blonde hair over one shoulder. “how was your vacation?”

“boring.”

“necessary,” mizael corrects. “your trail’s gone cold. durbe thinks you’re not happy about it. tell me why he’s wrong.”

he’s not, vector wants to say. instead, he smiles insipidly and crushes the rest of his cigarette into the ashtray. “first tell me where he got that idea?”

“you kept trying to escape.”

“being confined to a safehouse for six months as a reward for a job well done can make a guy go a bit stir crazy.”

“you’ve never had a problem with these precautions before.”

vector shrugs. “everyone has a breaking point.”

a tangible silence descends over them and vector wishes he could choke it out. mizael’s eyes won’t leave him, so he busies himself fiddling with the settings on his d-pad, scrolling again through the pictures of his new target.

“your new target?” mizael asks, decidedly neutral.

“mhm.”

“a piece of advice?”

“shoot.”

“don’t fall for him too.”

vector grits his teeth together. “i--”

“don knows your methods,” mizael says, cutting him off. “we all do. but you can’t let emotions seep through again. consider this your warning.”

“durbe’s wrong.”

regret fills mizael's next words: “that’s what you should have started with.”


	3. take time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> august 11th, xxxx, he wants to see you again but not the way you want to see him

it would’ve been easy to fall back into pattern any other time. mizael’s visit doesn’t have a time limit on it, and as much as he insists that it’s on don’s orders (monitoring his sleep schedule, eating habits, and daily routine), vector can’t believe that he’s not being at least a little selfish. after all, mizael has done nothing but keep an annoyingly close eye on him. it’s like he forgot what a personal bubble is.

but there’s no pattern unless vector points out mizael’s constant gourmet breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

he stares down at the plate in front of him, a stack of pancakes piled on it with blueberries sprinkled all over it. “why?”

“you like sweet things,” mizael responds, flipping his hair over his shoulder and grabbing whipped cream and maple syrup from the fridge. he slides them down the counter to vector. “i thought i should cater to that so you actually eat. did durbe not bring you food while you were on vacation?”

“confinement,” vector corrects, tentatively picking up the fork set on a napkin beside his plate.

since when did his rundown apartment have any of this stuff?

“in any case, you don’t look like you’re ready to take on a new target in that state. you scream mission failure.” mizael pauses for a moment. “well, not that i’d mind. you’re a pain in the ass.”

“and you keep making,” vector jabs his index finger at the plate, “stuff like  _ this _ for breakfast. talk about mixed signals.”

“you’re taken.”

“no i’m not.”

“your heart is. what was his name?”

“none of your--”

“kaito,” mizael interrupts, punctuated by the flip of another pancake. “durbe heard you in your sleep.”

vector scowls. “well the mission is over. alit and gilag are on cleanup and i’ll never see him again.”

“yeah, and if alit hears about this…”

“don’t you  _ dare _ .”

“no one knows except us. and durbe.”

“and don?”

mizael scoffs. “he’d murder you. of course he doesn’t know.”

he says it so easily, and the familiar shiver runs up vector’s spine. a reminder. because the threats aren’t jokes here, and vector has enough scars to prove it. his hand clutches over the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice mizael pressed and he takes a gulp that stings the back of his throat.

“ever think about running?”

mizael looks up from the stovetop, where he’s making even more of the damn pancakes. “running…?”

“like nasch did. when merag, when i…” vector sucks in a breath. “you know what i’m talking about. he left us.”

“he did. and clearly he kept our secrets, so he’s not on our radar anymore.”

vector licks his lips, feeling the acid burn the cracks in them, thinking about the tall, confident sister of his next mark. the beautiful reporter who he alerted when no one was keeping an eye on him. when he had ten minutes alone and a thick crowd to get lost in.

“so that’s the trick, huh?”

“guess so,” mizael says. “anyway, eat up. then we’ll figure out how to get your muscle back. you clearly haven’t been keeping up with your training, how are you supposed to make people fall for you when you’re not even toting a six-pack?”

~

kaito sits, hunched over his keyboard, reading glasses reflecting the bright blue light of his monitor in his dark room. orbital 7 is sleeping in his charging dock, the hum of his computer and the static from the cctv footage the only things breaking the almost perfect silence.

kaito feels his lips pull up in an exhausted, lethal grin.

one image. one whole image in six whole months.

“found you.”

~

“these push-ups would be more fun if you were under me,” vector says, rolling over onto his back after finishing the rep. “and these sit-ups would be more fun if--”

“shut up and start your reps,” mizael says, holding vector’s feet flat on the floor and tucking a stray strand of his hair behind his ear. “come on, one…”

vector grunts as he pulls himself up, trying to focus on how mizael’s face is just inches from his, on how a year ago flirting with him was so easy because mizael always got flustered and mad, even when it was all a joke. entertainment. a year ago, it was all so fucking simple, a pattern that vector could track.

it’s not simple anymore.

“that’s fifteen. switch.”

vector takes a deep breath and rolls over again.

“let’s up it to twenty this time.”

“slave driver.”

vector feels the burn in his arms but doesn’t stop only because it’s better to focus on that than the other things his mind keeps drifting to. like kaito’s eyes reflecting the first snow, or his breath on his lips, or--

“twenty, switch.”

vector rolls over again and tries to pretend the heat in his face is from how fucking annoying pushups are after six months out of the game. mizael’s warm hands are on his feet again.

“you’re blushing,” he says.

“am not.”

mizael raises a brow and sighs. “let’s take a break, and you can tell me what you were focusing so intently on.”

vector huffs out a breath. he knows what comes next: mizael’s day job might be "beautiful yoga instructor," but don hired him as the shrink of the force. durbe was on intel, alit and gilag were the muscle, and vector was the agent that carried everything out. then there was mizael, who always seemed completely useless until everything got wrapped up.

he was the one who made sure they were all still mentally sane at the end of it all.

“i’m fine.” vector sits up, cracking his neck and glaring at mizael. “nothing is wrong.”

“that’s what they all say when something is wrong,” mizael says. “what happened? durbe mentioned you had nightmares at the safehouse.”

“those happen to everyone.”

“he said you woke up screaming.”

“ _ nothing is wrong _ ,” vector growls, gritting his teeth. “i’m  _ fine _ . what about that don’t you understand?”

mizael picks up his water bottle and dumps its contents over vector’s head. “cool off, asshole,” he says calmly. “we can talk when you’re ready, but it’s clearly not nothing and you’re clearly not fine. even if don’s the one ordering me around, i still maintain the confidentiality of my patients so--”

“i am  _ not _ one of your pathetic patients--”

mizael continues, “you don’t have to worry about me outing you, or anyone finding out. you only have two more days of confinement before you’re out on your next mission. you can’t go into it when your mind is still on the last one.”

vector shakes the water out of his hair and huffs. he’s not wrong, and he hates it. “fine, we’ll do it your way.”

“good,” mizael says, smiling again like nothing happened. “now clean up this mess and come talk to me when you’re done.”


	4. starcrossed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> august 12th, xxxx, speaking words into existence through sound breaks your chains to the past

akari tsukumo answers her door in her pajamas, having been woken up by the doorbell. she’s expecting a package, but the mailman usually doesn’t come round this neighbourhood until the afternoon. but hey, if her replacement keyboard is knocking, who is she to not answer?

it’s not the mailman.

she blinks tiredly at the short teen in front of her, probably around her younger brother, yuuma’s, age. one of his friends? she’s never seen him at the academy before, though. could be a transfer student. overseas? he’s got the blonde hair for it, unless it’s dyed, but she can’t see roots. but before she can ask:

“are you akari tsukumo?”

her brow furrows. “yeah, what about it?”

the kid just nods to himself. “you know this guy?” he asks, holding up a printout of her at the grounds cafe from a few days ago.

she scuffs her fluffy sliders on the welcome mat, immediately feeling uncomfortable. “not particularly. he just sat with me because it was busy at the cafe that day.” or at least, that’s the excuse he gave her before diving into another conversation entirely, one that’s had her on edge since he left her there.

“did he say anything to you?”

akari hesitates. was this was that kid had been talking about? or would this encounter just provide some much needed answers that google doesn’t seem to have? and who is she to turn away answers? she’s a reporter after all.

she folds her arms over her chest and straightens her back, drawing up to her full height. “you know him?”

“... yeah.”

“granny just made tea, we can talk over it in my office.”

“okay.”

akari steps aside from the door, letting him in. “so, kid. what’s your name since you know mine?”

“kaito,” he says. “kaito tenjo.”

~

breakfast is another gourmet affair and vector can’t say he’s getting sick of it when it all tastes so goddamn good. he is sick of the view though, of the four walls of his apartment and mizael’s prying questions. of how everything is so contained and safe and bullshit.

he uses his fork to cut through french toast and eats up globs of whipped cream and wonders when everything will feel normal again. if he even wants it to.

“penny for your thoughts?” mizael asks, making another batch on the stovetop.

it’s become more and more obvious that everything mizael has been doing is to get him to talk. to make him so sick of dancing around the problem that he finally confronts it, whether it was that first interrogation, the stupid workouts, the three square meals. it’s more of a safehouse than whatever durbe threw him in for six months. the only thing the safehouse had on this was the ps4 with all the games in vector’s backlog and the stack of frozen pizzas in the freezer. like they were trying to distract a child from the real problem.

“how hot you are when your hair’s up,” vector says.

why didn’t they send mizael to stay with him in the first place? but that’s a stupid question because vector’s never needed him before (and he doesn’t need him now, but that’s not stopping him from poking around).

“how have you been feeling today?”

vector pauses in absently tearing the toast apart. “i took his brother from him, how do you think i’m feeling?”

~

akari stares at him. “he did _what_?”

“he kidnapped my brother,” kaito repeats for her.

they’re sitting in her office, which is mostly just a computer room. holo-screens make up the majority of the largest wall, hovering above a white desk stacked with notebooks and littered with pens in different colours. her chair is high-backed and pleather, something she must have saved up for considering her salary is entry-level.

she tucks a strand of her red hair behind her ear as she thinks. it’s not rei’s red, but something out of a box. it was down when she answered the door, but she tied it up in a ponytail as soon as kaito started talking, a notebook and pen in her lap in case he said anything important. she’s still in her pajamas, though.

kaito can see the gears whirring in her head, trying to piece together whatever rei said to her with what he’s saying now. he wonders if the answer she finds will be satisfactory.

or another nightmare.

“that’s… no. wait--” she spins her chair around and rummages through the drawers under her desk. she withdraws a napkin and holds it out to him. “he told me to call him. said i’d know when.”

kaito takes it from her, noting the way she wrings her fingers together in her lap after. she’s nervous. “it’s different…” he says under his breath, reading the number over again and wondering why a calling card was even necessary. “and, you’ll know because you’ll see him again,” he says, addressing her. “you have a brother too, right?”

“yeah, but what does-- no way,” it dawns on her quickly. “you think yuuma’s a target?”

“could be,” kaito says with a shrug. “have you tried calling the number?”

akari stops wringing her fingers, hand going to rub her arm. “no. i’m not sure if i want to.”

“it could provide you answers.”

“i don’t think i want to hear them,” she admits. “but at the same time, i can’t not know.”

“if that’s the case,” kaito starts carefully, “what did rei say to you?” he tries to ignore that he still can’t say his name without a certain softness on the single syllable. he hates it.

“he told me about barian. an underground dueling ring whose victims suffer a fate worse than death,” akari says, like she’s rehearsed the line. but he knows it’s just been on her mind this whole thing, trying to see past the description and into the world described. “he also… said that he didn’t want to be a part of it. and that our meeting was foreshadowing.”

“then your brother is probably a target. does he play duel monsters?”

“yeah.”

“does he win a lot?”

“i don’t know. he’s not even supposed to be dueling in the first place!” akari says, frustrated. “he seems happier lately though, so i guess he does? but, how do you even know rei? clearly you have a prior rapport with him other than, you know…” she trails off, not knowing how to say any more.

kaito grimaces. he’d hoped she wouldn’t figure anything out, that’d he’d control the questions here, but she’s a reporter. of course she’d put two and two together. and there’s no point in hiding what happened from a person who might end up in a similar situation.

“we…” he takes a deep breath. “we dated. that’s how he caught me off-guard.”

~

“how far did you guys go?”

vector knows exactly what mizael’s asking and doesn’t want to answer at all. the tv is playing commercials, because watching movies on cable is the worst but it’s better than talking to mizael when there’s only one thing he wants to talk about and it’s the exact thing vector never wants to think about again (but can’t stop thinking about because self-loathing has a bad sense of humour).

“my mission started a year ago. we dated six months and i’ve been angsting for another six.”

“and what kind of dating was it?”

vector scrunches his nose up. “sickeningly romantic.”

“how so?”

it’s weird how freeing it is to talk about it, but vector still hates putting all the balled up emotions into words. “we made out a lot. we went on movie dates and dinner dates and coffee dates. i got to know haruto and how important he is to him.”

“and?”

vector’s mouth goes dry. he wonders why the commercials seem to run for ages and tries waiting it out, but he cracks thirty seconds in.

“i didn’t want to do it.”

~

there’s a long moment of silence. akari doesn’t know what to say to him. but, if there’s a chance…

“he wants to leave. why else would he let me know what’s happening, however cryptically he did it?” she says. “maybe--”

“no,” kaito says, steely and cold. “just, no. i’m catching him and turning him in and busting the entire barian operation even if i have to do it myself.”

akari watches his entire being tense up, fists clenching over the arms of the chair she lent him. and then she decides.

“you’re not doing it alone,” she says determinedly. “i’m a reporter. i can circulate this story. i can help you. and if he’s really after yuuma next, then we’ll just have to keep a close eye on him and make sure to swoop in before anything bad happens.”

he watches her, like he’s sizing her up, and nods. “i’ll watch your brother. it’s not ideal, but he’s the perfect bait since he’s already on his radar. you continue life like everything’s normal.”

“sure.” akari can handle that. probably. she feels her nerves wrack a shudder up her spine.

_worse than death._

“don’t be nervous. i know him. i can handle it.”

~

mizael stares at vector for a moment that lasts entirely too long, especially when he made the point of switching off the tv so the room could be doused in silence while he did it.

“you grew a moral compass,” he says, and vector can’t tell if he’s in shock or awe. or both.

“if you wanna put it that way, why not.”


	5. from the top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> august 14th, xxxx, but there’s one thing i know that will always remain and that's the aftertaste

akari knows her job is to stay put and act like everything’s nothing. she knows.

but kaito tenjo barely described himself, and trust issues are a thing she’s had since she was sixteen. there’s no way she’s letting some random person who happens to also know the street kid from the grounds keep an eye on her brother without a background check.

it’s why, two days after meeting him, she finds herself at the heartland university campus, parking her motorcycle in the stupidly expensive parking lot and checking the time on the expensive watch she nicked from her asshat ex.

she’s got about twenty minutes to confirm what she found online.

she walks through the familiar campus, heading toward the science departments, through the library and up the elevator three floors. she fiddles with the charm on her messenger bag, the hair-tie on her wrist, the part of her bangs that keeps falling into her face. finally, she reaches the astronomy corridor, filled with gigantic diagrams of the solar system, star charts, and motivational posters with star puns.

akari stops in front of the door with the nameplate “christopher arclight” and wonders what it’s like to have a name so pretentious. it’d make for a good byline.

she’s about to knock when the door opens and suddenly she’s face-to-face with the man himself. his long white hair is tucked over his shoulder and tied in a loose braid. half-moon glasses are perched on his nose. he looks about as startled as akari feels.

“hi,” he says smartly. “you don’t look like one of my students.”

“i’m not,” akari replies, also smartly (because he’s stupidly pretty for someone with a stupidly pretentious name). “i… i’m here because i have some questions about someone you might know named kaito tenjo,” she says. “for an article,” she adds hastily, because it’s just dawned on her that this probably sounds like stalking out of context. “i work for--”

“you don’t have to lie,” he interrupts smoothly, an abrupt one-eighty in tone. “come in, you can tell me exactly why you’re asking about him.”

akari feels her face flush. “okay fine, but for the record i _am_ a reporter,” she says, following him in and closing the door behind her.

~

yuuma tsukumo is a typical middle school dueling idiot. he sleeps in class, copies his girlfriend’s homework, is competitive to a fault, and his favourite period is duel period. because of course it is.

kaito sighs from his perch on top of the main building, sitting on the edge of the roof as he tracks yuuma’s movements through the ar fields. monsters topple the buildings that make up the campus, dive through the ground, and emerge through dark whirlpools of light. yuuma whoops through it all with his girlfriend beside him and a kid who fumbles through maneuvering his skateboard

middle schoolers make for some boring duels, but there’s one kid who tops the rest: a violet-haired kid with a bad attitude and a deck full of sharks. he makes quick work of every duelist who challenges him.

and he’s headed straight for yuuma.

“orbital, zoom in on yuuma and project the visual to my d-gazer,” kaito says lazily. “i wanna see this.”

after all, if yuuma’s skills were good enough to be targeted by barian, then this would make for an interesting match-up. a syllable deck against sharks? why not. anything can happen in a schoolyard. orbital complies with a squeak from his voice-box before projecting the image.

“orbital, see if you can tap into yuuma’s audio feed too.”

soon the sounds of the duel are in his ear.

~

“so, explain to me exactly how you know kaito tenjo,” christopher arclight says from his high-backed leather office chair, steepling his fingers over the dark wood of his desk.

akari really doesn’t know what to say to that. so instead, she takes a seat in one of the chairs across from his desk and starts spinning the meditation ring she’s wearing where the promise ring used to be. “recently our situations coincided with a similar motive and--”

“what situation.”

“my brother is being targeted by the same group that took kaito’s brother and he said he’d make sure i wouldn’t go through what he did,” akari blurts out quickly. if this was a villainous interrogation, she would be an absolutely failure of a secret keeper.

christopher arclight presses his lips together and sighs. “ah,” he says.

akari half expects him to continue, but that’s all that comes out of his mouth for the next minute and she’s torn between being annoyed and being fascinated. how spacey is this guy?

“i just wanted to know if i could trust him,” akari finally says, breaking the weird silence and eye contact. “i’m not leaving my brother in the hands of someone who i can’t trust.”

“that’s fair,” he agrees, with another shift into that serious, intelligent, thoughtful voice. he takes another moment to gather his thoughts, and akari can see the gears turning in his head. finally: “you can trust him. but he doesn’t trust me. his relationships since the day his brother was taken are strained, but he means well and will help you.”

“he told me to let him handle it all,” akari adds. she still feels weird about that, because yuuma isn’t exactly the world’s smartest kid. he runs into trouble more than she’d like him to. what if he runs straight into danger?

christopher arclight nods. “he’s been hunting the people responsible for six months. he’ll take any scrap of information he can get. but he’ll never use your brother as bait on purpose,” he says, seeing right through her unvoiced question. “any other anxieties?”

akari licks her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “no. thank you for your time.”

“no problem,” christopher arclight says, standing up with her.

he looks as if he wants to say something else, but it doesn’t come out, and akari leaves without finding out. too deep in her own thoughts. she needs to call him.

~

the duel between yuuma and the shark-wielder (kaito really can’t come up with a better name than “pretentious bully”) continues. and keeps going. and going. and kaito quickly latches on to one very specific fact.

“who’s he talking to?” he asks under his breath, adjusting his d-gazer as if it would help him figure it out.

yuuma’s friends are cheering behind him, but it’s nothing conversational. yuuma just stares at specific points and talks like there’s a person there. kaito vaguely wonders if he volunteered to keep an eye on someone with some sort of personality disorder. or maybe ghosts really are real.

“fine, fine, i’ll do it, _jeez_ ,” yuuma says over the audio feed, and kaito can see the downturned corners of his pout as he makes his move. “here we go!” he exclaims as he executes a perfect backflip and draws for turn.

the kid is basically a gymnast, backflipping and cartwheeling all over his side of the field as if to hype himself up throughout the duel. it’s kind of endearing, the kind of energy he has that surpasses the middle-school norm because most are jaded toward the entire school experience by now and not-so-patiently waiting to hit high school.

kaito’s still not sure why barian would have their eyes on yuuma, but he figures underground duels attract some weirdos and yuuma might just be the kind that the crowd would enjoy down there. not that he’d survive for a second.

and kaito hopes he never has to.

(he wonders where haruto is, if he’s being treated like a slave or a guest, if he’s eating properly, if he’ll ever see him again.)


End file.
